A taste of Vegan Thailand, testimony and tips

I have been in Thailand twice, and visited the country from north to south, east to west and several islands from both seas. Thailand was the firsts country I visited in Southeast Asia and since then felt in love for that part of the globe.

If you are planning to travel there, be prepared to be astonished with its exotic, luxurious and unspoiled natural areas, colourful places, interesting temples, nice, smily and laid-back people, great weather, unbelievable beaches, maniac drivers, and at last but not the least THE FOOD….

From my personal experience, I need to say that’s fairly easy to have a vegan/vegetarian diet in Thailand. Even when you adventure yourself out of the big cities and you go to places that haven’t seen many Foreigners.

I found that being vegan in Thailand is often deeply respected as Thailand is a predominately Buddhist country. There is a big prevalence of soy products, like milk and tofu, and traditionally Thai food doesn’t contain dairy, this includes desserts 🙂 so your main concern will mainly involve the use of eggs.

Fruit stands, fresh markets, night markets and street stalls are very abundant. You will have so many vegan options to choose from, that looks like heaven. All my meals included fresh veggies, fruit (so much fruit), rice or rice noodles, juices and Coconut Water and may I say fruit again 🙂

The fruit is so delicious that I just couldn’t have enough of it… and you will understand why…

The only problem is what they cook with. They tend to use fish sauce, oyster sauce, and shrimp paste a lot, so be careful, prepared and relaxed knowing that most of the times communication is not the best, so make sure you explain that you are vegan/vegetarian and you don’t consume shrimp paste (gapi), oyster sauce (sot hoi naag rom), and fish sauce (nam bplaa). In some odd occasions I even needed to add that I don’t eat chicken too 😀

If you can’t communicate your needs and you’re feeling uncomfortable just politely decline and move on to another location. you will see that everyone will smile and be kind to you. I like to eat in the street stalls and markets, from my experience people is really nice and will try to do something for you even if is not in their “menu” but be prepared to be persuaded to have their normal dish because they think what you are asking is not going to be delicious 🙂 Try not to be to picky and expect them to cook using the same pans where they did the chicken, fish and shrimps.

I found that the easiest way is to say that you follow a jay diet, which translates as strict vegan, but with no garlic and onions. So you can look for the national sign : a bright yellow flag with “Jay” (เจ) written in red, looks like a 17. You can find this sign almost everywhere from restaurants, food stalls or supermarket packages. The restaurants are not to expensive and the food is great.

I found that looking for Taoist temples which have also restaurants is great as well, they are vegan, the price is usually low and they use lot of really delicious textured vegetable.

It’s also good to know that Thailand hosts a great annual national vegetarian festival called teet-sa-kan kin jay, so you can always try to travel during those dates (9th lunar month of the Chinese calendar) you will not regret.

Cool! It was many years ago I lived there (1954 – 1965) when I was young. No doubt many things have changed but I’m sure many things remain the same. I lived in South India and went to boarding school in North India. Wonderful Country! I’m looking forward to hearing your reports!

I will soon be writing a review about Kerala, (South India is incomplete without the state), also since I live in Bangalore, Karnataka can help you with information about that city too. Lovely blog you have written about Vegan food.

Great post!
Great pictures!
I’m eager to go to Thailand (just waiting for #18 an d#27 get older). Some years ago I went to Indonesia. I loved the people, the culture and the food! So amazing! And since then I dream to visit the rest of that part of the globe!
Regards

I went with my partner (not in a tour) and never had any problem! I felt really safe everywhere and because we travel for long periods we do go to odd places sometimes 😉 hehe. just be aware of the touristic traps mostly in Bangkok and near the other major touristic attraction. If need any tips just get in touch 🙂

Thank you for this I’m going on fall and i was wondering how it works there for vegans or vegetarians i definitely will do the same as you. Lovely pics and the tricks this is super useful definitely going to repost your experience in our blog! thanks for sharing!

Thank you for your post. I have been in Thailand two times as well, back then I wasn’t on vegan diet yet, all though I had a lot of meals vegetarian or vegan even then.
Wonderful photos. Thanks again! I hope to go there another time someday.

hi Undine, thanks you so much for reading and leaving a comment, It’s really nice to get to know new bloggers that have similar tastes and shared similar experiences. I hope to go to Thailand again as well is such a beautiful place 😉